A research project funded under the Economic and Social Research Council's Sustainable Technologies Programme. New, more environmentally sustainable technologies often emerge in niches at the margins of mainstream technological systems. By looking at three examples in the UK: organic food; eco-housing; and wind energy schemes, this project is seeking to understand how experiments with alternative technologies come to have more widespread influence. The project was carried out by Dr Adrian Smith at SPRU-Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Sussex.

This project has now finished and the final report is available here (pdf, 880 kb).

The following lessons were learnt about green niches:

Niche-regime model definitely a useful heuristic
Niche benefits can be tacit and intangible
Idealists are essential, but so too are resources
Radical niches struggle to enrol resources
Different perspectives: niche actors cf. regime members
Translation between niche and mainstream is essential
Policy must support niches and guide regime translation
However, an argumentative model for policy is realistic
Niche-regime relationship is dialectic

Adrian Smith is grateful to all those who helped with this project.